November 08, 2004

It's not the values, stupid!

I think a case could be made that ignorance played at least as big a role in the election's outcome as values. A recent survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that nearly 70 percent of President Bush's supporters believe the U.S. has come up with "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda. A third of the president's supporters believe weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. And more than a third believe that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion.
This is scary. How do you make a rational political pitch to people who have put that part of their brain on hold? No wonder Bush won.

Ahh, here it is now. Yes, now that it is becoming clear that the Bush victory wasn’t actually driven by radical fundamentalist Christians but that instead he increased his share of the vote among traditionally Democratic voting Hispanics, Jews, women, and even gays, the conventional wisdom just chalks it up to stupidity and ignorance. The mantra for the next four years won’t be that Bush, a man with degrees from both Harvard and Yale and who it might be pointed out scored higher on aptitude tests when entering the military than Sen. Kerry is stupid, it will be that the American people and obviously especially Bush supporters are just plain ignorant. I heard a lot of this while living in England. The line was Americans are fat, stupid, uncultured, and yikes, even actually believe in God.

Well, lets take a look at what the New York Times has to say. With obvious disbelief, they cite the poll that 70% of Bush supporters believe that “the U.S. has come up with "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda.” Why might someone believe that? Consider the following facts:

* Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large in the Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. U.S. forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Mr. Yasin both a house and monthly salary.

* Bin Laden met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization, a secret police agency run by Saddam's son Qusay, and met with officials from Saddam's mukhabarat, its external intelligence service, according to intelligence made public by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was speaking before the United Nations Security Council on February 6, 2003.

* Bin Laden met the director of the Iraqi mukhabarat in 1996 in Khartoum, according to Mr. Powell.

* An al Qaeda operative now held by the U.S. confessed that in the mid-1990s, bin Laden had forged an agreement with Saddam's men to cease all terrorist activities against the Iraqi dictator, Mr. Powell told the United Nations.

* In 1999 the Guardian, reported that Farouk Hijazi, a senior officer in Iraq's mukhabarat, had journeyed deep into the icy mountains near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 1998 to meet with al Qaeda men. Mr. Hijazi is "thought to have offered bin Laden asylum in Iraq," the Guardian reported.

* In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman al Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's No. 2 man.

And people believe there’s a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda? Gosh, just crazy really! Well maybe they saw this, Possible Saddam-Al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program.

Maybe it had something to do with this story,

Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam that states in part, “during President Clinton's eight years in office, there were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and al Qaeda.”

Wow! Can you believe that some of them even believe that WMD were found? Maybe it’s because technically, some were.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent recently exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday.
Bush administration officials told Fox News that mustard gas was also recently discovered.
Two people were treated for "minor exposure" after the sarin incident but no serious injuries were reported. Soldiers transporting the shell for inspection suffered symptoms consistent with low-level chemical exposure, which is what led to the discovery, a U.S. official told Fox News.
"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy."

Perhaps just to be “fair and balanced” we should include some of the things that those who obviously didn’t support the President believe. It seems that among the enlightened and cultured who oppose Bush there is this quirky little rumor that America itself killed thousands on September 11th. CNN reports,

PARIS, France (CNN) -- Throughout the spring, and into this summer, a leading bestseller in France has not been some great work of French literature but a $17-dollar paperback called the "Horrifying Fraud."

The book casts doubt on the official version of the events of September 11, substituting an elaborate conspiracy concocted by America's military-industrial complex in order to increase U.S. military budgets. It has sold more than 200,000 copies here -- a huge success in French terms --attracting interest from readers like Eduard Chabanon and Naoufal Lahlou who are skeptical about much of what they are learn from the news. Lahlou said: "There is always doubt. I haven't seen any proof that shows that man walked on the moon."

Hmmm, that can’t really be true. But wait, Newsweek reports

"To get a sense of how deep mistrust of the United States runs in Germany, take a look at the bookshelves. Two years after September 11, German bookstores are flooded with such works as 'The CIA and September 11,' in which a former government minister, Andreas von Bülow, insinuates that the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services blew up the World Trade Center from the inside..."

Then there is this from the CBC about what our left leaning brothers in Canada believe,

“On September 11, 2001, pilot less airplanes were guided into the World Trade Center by homing beacons. It wasn't a plane that hit the Pentagon, but a missile. U.S. Air Force planes weren't scrambled to intercept the hijacked planes that morning because the White House was behind the events of that tragic day.

Incredible? Definitely. Outlandish? Absolutely. But, there are lots of people who believe that at least some parts of these stories are true.”

No wonder all those oh not so bright Americans voted for Bush, they don’t even understand that it was the Bush administration itself that destroyed the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon and drove that airplane full of people into the ground in Pennsylvania. Ah, I see now.

Kevin, I was thinking about the GOP being against American gays, women who have had or are considering an abortion, veterans, Muslims, immigrants, and so on. After a while, it adds up. Fifty million Americans getting the short end of the stick? A hundred million?

The measure of the worth of a society is how well it treats the least of us; and the GOP has in recent years consistently failed that test. It hasn't always been that way, of course -- its co-opting the worst sort of Southern politician has led to this, in my opinion -- and there are still many Republicans who believe in the civic virtues. Unfortunately, their views have been systematically undercut for decades. For example, I look at Representative Steve Gunderson's decision not to return to Congress. A well-liked, decent guy representing a predominantly rural district in northwest Wisconsin. Too bad he was gay. Not Our GOP, Dear.

As for safety, well, I still have concrete dust in my gutters. It set there in the rains, in the fall of 2001. I'll need a chisel to get that stuff out. I wonder who was president then? Whoever it was, he failed the most basic test of all: to keep his countrymen safe.

Ah, so you're simply a troll. See how quickly your veneer of civility drops. I suppose the innuendo will be next. Then the cussing. I've seen it before, countless times.

Well. It's a little rude to come on to someone else's blog and attempt to force an argument. Don't you agree? I suggest to my gentle co-blogger a round of devowelization. That is, if you think this Kevin fellow is worth salvaging. I kinda doubt it, myself.

Kevin, if you haven't figured it out by now, everyone is free to call Bush "evil" and the people who vote for him "blind" and lacking in some key intelligence and generally homophobic religious zealots but should you start saying anything negative about a liberal or their political foibles then that quickly falls into the "uncivil" category or "not playing nice." Basically, they dish it out easy and heavy but when it comes to taking a little...
And all this whining is really breaking my heart. Come on people, you are making it awfully hard not to gloat. Get Over It. A little advice? As long as you continue to mock, patronize and classify the majority of U.S. voters as "blind" and lacking a certain amount of intellectual acumen then you'll continue to lose. So keep it up :)
Which reminds me of a joke...
A teacher asked her young students whether they were George Bush fans or John Kerry fans. The whole class raised their hands and proclaimed that they were George Bush fans. All except one that is.
The teacher asked the lone, young pupil what he was and she proudly answered, "I'm a John Kerry fan."
"Why are you a John Kerry fan?" asked the teacher.
"Because my father is a John Kerry fan and my mother is a John Kerry fan," stated the pupil.
"Well you'd better be careful with that kind of thinking," warned the teacher, and then asked, "What would you be if your father was an imbecil and your mother was a moron?"
The pupil didn't hesitate.
"Then I'd be a George Bush fan."
(I love that joke.) That ol' rube George Bush and the ol' rubes who vote for him.
Here's a thought: I don't want to sound uncivil or anything but maybe, just maybe, you guys lost because, well, maybe because YOU don't quite get it. Hmmmmm. But of course that would be absurd because for one thing, what do I know, I'm just a dumb Bush fan and you guys are the enlightened intellectuals. Therefore this is all rather pointless isn't it. Oh well...
I was just thinking that this blog should be re-named "Halfway Down the Bottle" with this continual crying in the beer stuff. But feel free to drown your sorrows and carry on. You really don't hafta get over it though if you don't want. It's rather entertaining actually. I'll just check back once in a while and see if their is any Danube stuff amidst all this commiserating.
P.S. If it's in the New York Times it has to be true not to mention unbiased and pure.
Now let's all be civil and keep on smiling :)